News

Smears vs. solutions

Randi Weingarten at a Massachusetts high school

Summer is upon us, and parents, children and teachers are winding down from what has been an exhausting and fully operational school year—the first since the devastating pandemic. The long-lasting impact of COVID-19 has affected our students’ and families’ well-being and ignited the politics surrounding public schools. All signs point to the coming school year unfolding with the same sound and fury, and if extremist culture warriors have their way, being even more divisive and stressful.

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

AFT-Wisconsin Spring 2022 Endorsements

AFT-Wisconsin COPE has endorsed the following candidates for the spring 2022 election happening on April 5, 2022. Now is the time to get involved. Let us know how you'd like to get more involved!

Randi Weingarten and NYC teacher Tamara Simpson

Attacks on public education in America by extremists and culture-war peddling politicians have reached new heights (“lows” may be more apt), but they are not new. The difference today is that the attacks are intended not just to undermine public education but to destroy it.

University Senate Passes Union Resolution Supporting Shared Governance

At the December 12, 2017 meeting of the UWEC University Senate, Senators voted resoundingly in favor of a resolution affirming its support of open, transparent shared governance.

The motion was introduced in response to events at UW-Superior and UW-Stevens Point earlier that fall in which administrators announced plans to unillaterally eliminate or suspend major and minor programs on their campuses without following established governance procedures.

In passing the resolution, the UWEC University Senate not only expressed its disapproval of the actions of administrators at UW-Superior and UW

Results of 2019 Academic Staff Survey

In Spring 2019, one-third (n=290) of all academic staff and faculty completed a survey about working conditions on campus—the first effort in a long time to find out how UWEC employees feel about their jobs. A full presentation of the results was presented at the union’s spring Membership Meeting; it is available as a Powerpoint file here: academic_staff_survey_presentation.pptx

Problems and Solutions Our objectives were to learn what problems and concerns academic staff and faculty have with their working conditions and how we can improve them. As you might guess, pay was the biggest concern

General Membership Makes Recommendation on Chancellor's $3 Million Compensation Proposal

On October 27, 2016, at the Fall membership meeting, UFAS-UWEC members voted unanimously to approve a recommendation on how Chancellor Schmidt should allocate $3 million in one-time money among staff and faculty at UW-Eau Claire.

Four UFAS-UWEC members designed a short survey of all employees on campus regarding how they thought the money should be allocated; the survey ultimately collected 251 responses. Peter Hart-Brinson presented the results of the survey, which showed that UWEC employees, in general, valued both equity and merit equally. It further showed that they thought providing all

AFT-Wisconsin release: UW-Eau Claire faculty declare no confidence with historic vote

Eau Claire, WI: Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution of no confidence in UW System President Ray Cross and the Board of Regents. Members of AFT local 6481, United Faculty and Academic Staff of UW-Eau Claire, collected signatures from one-third of campus faculty to call for a special meeting of all faculty on the resolution, the first such meeting at the university in nearly fifty years. The resolution, which passed by a landslide margin of 227-98, is the latest in a wave of no confidence resolutions across the UW System, a nationally unprecedented event.

Higher Ed Council members lead wave of no confidence votes

A nationally unprecedented series of votes of no confidence in UW System President Ray Cross and the Board of Regents, led by AFT-Wisconsin Higher Education Council and American Association of University Professors members, has spread rapidly across the UW System. The first such resolution was passed by the UW-Madison faculty senate in late April, followed quickly by faculty senates at the River Falls, La Crosse, Green Bay, and Stout campuses, and at the 13 two-year institutions comprising the UW Colleges; by the academic staff senate at UW-Milwaukee; and by a historic, unanimous vote of the

Kathy Evert, an elementary school teacher in the Wisconsin Heights district, was one of a group of teachers from across the United States invited to participate in President Barack Obama’s celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Day at the White House. Evert, the co-president of AFT local 1917, represented the AFT at the May 3^rd event honoring the national Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes.